someone asked if any other colnagos in the early 80s had crimped tubes besides the early Master. The Regal and the Arabesque both did. To me, those two bikes represent the tail-end of the "golden era" Colnagos--"golden era" being somewhat arbitrary, I know, as Colnago has made many interesting frame since--the fancy lugs, and the fairly high-zoot workmanship on those frames are a kind of nostalgic nod to the past, at the point where Colnago was all about the future.
I probably missed the point of the thread somewhere in there, but it does seem to me that trying nail down the exact dates of these bikes--we know the crimped-tube gimmick was an early 80s thing and persisted for some time after..maybe, to me, that's all we need to know--is less important than a general understanding of the way Colnago was increasingly canny about marketing as the 80s progressed. And how that marketing awareness slowly erased the artisan qualities that made his frames of the 70s more appealing, somehow.
I find the last of the Supers with the crimped chainstays, the *colnago* samped in the sides of the stays, and the stay ends crimped around the drop-outs (instead of faired in, in the classic style) to be unappealing to look at. They look crude and unfinished, somehow, compared to the more traditionally finished frames of just a couple of years before. By the middle of the 80s it seems all italian production frames, even top-line frames, were finished in this fashion. Not much fun, but it probably saved time.
De Rosa resisted the fashion longer than most, but I think he finally started doing it that way too, although I don't recall seeing any pics proving it. Maybe he never did it.
I owned one of these later Supers for a few years and it was a very nice-riding bike. Very much the racing thoroughbred of the time...but aesthetically it didn't do much for me. Since they are such fine riders, they're something of a bargain on the used market, since many were made, it seems, and they have not really reached the status of a true collectible. That said, a few I've seen have gone for larger bucks in the last year or two.
I like the older Colnagos best, probably almost solely because that--and Masi--was the first high-end racing bike I fell for. They do ride nice, too, though.
Charles Andrews
SoCal